A Taste of Shadows
by made-in-wonder
Summary: Queens should occasionally listen to their servants. Melodrama. Extremely AU - the genderswap is just the start of it. Was supposed to be Gemshipping after a very long, winding fashion.


**Disclaimer**: I don't own Yugioh. This, also, is an extremely odd piece. Please bear with my odd AU and the fact I'm currently on a genderswap kick.

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"Please, enough."

Her hands shake, so she grips the wrinkled fabric of her shift to hide the reaction; her mouth trembles, so she lowers her head to shield it from Bakura's eyes. Her tongue flicks in and out of her mouth, tasting the air but also antsy, uncertain, not knowing what to say but certain somewhere along the way, everything has gone horribly wrong.

She's supposed to feel proud she'd grown stronger for her friend. So why does she feel so much weaker, so much more sick and twisted and monstrous, instead?

Bakura looks over from where she sits, munching her onion; her eyes shine in the light from the city below, with a light her companion can't help but find eerie, unreal. Corrupt. "Enough?" she snorts with a smirk, shifting. Against her chest, gold glints, clatters as fang-shaped spindles clink against each other. "We're just getting started. One down…six to go."

"It's too much." Her eyes well with tears; she blinks them away and shifts her face slightly, shadows growing tight and intense around her, eyes taking on a pearly sheen - yet dulled, corroded by the poison blackness already working its way through her body. "It hurts. It's not supposed to _be_ like this! This isn't what you promised me!"

"And this ain't what you promised, either," Bakura drawls, growing catlike, dangerous; the Queen of Thieves, who can slip through shadows unseen. "Aren't you the strong one, protectin' me? Aren't we partners? Don't you want what I want? You were born from that night just like this was." She flicks the Item around her neck with a course fingernail; it chimes like a bell, but the sound sears her companion's ears, ringing hollow. "Fifteen years ago…..who raised you up to be big and strong?"

The tongue slips back into her mouth: she's tasted the darkness and it's bitter and cold. "Y-you did, Bakura," she mumbles, then snaps her head up, stares into the thief's eyes, into one sighted eye and one just as milky as her own, yet sightless, scarred. Proof of her own former foolishness. She'd sworn never to let Bakura be harmed again. "But this isn't real strength! I'm more powerful - but it eats at me, I'm rotting, it's in my skin and I want it out! Take that thing off, Bakura, take it off!"

She rushes her friend, her charge, her life and her soul and the person for whom she was born, hatched in the darkness of a ghost town the night after a slaughter; she grabs for the hateful _thing_ that's stealing even the thief from her, it's all wrong, it's not as it should be, this isn't what they've fought and robbed and murdered and laughed and cried and huddled and screamed and rejoiced for, this isn't how their lives, the Pharaoh's death, is supposed to go. It's _wrong_, and she's the guardian - she'll protect Bakura -

But Bakura raises a hand, a hand stronger than her own in this form, and strikes her aside with a snarl. "I told you this would happen, didn't I?" she growls; her companion lies hunched in the sand, tongue licking the air, eyes dead and pearly to keep from crying, shadows bunching behind her into a serpentine tail and wings. "I told you it brings out the darkness! But that's what's giving you all this strength."

Bakura laughs, drunkenly, though they've tasted no beer today. "Even now I just want to fight," she continues, her own body shaking slightly. "Even now I just want to ride down into that city, you by my side - I want them all soaked in blood, I want the whole world burning like my family burned." She grins, and her companion fancies even Bakura has somehow grown fangs. "I want you to channel this power and slaughter the Pharaoh for me. I want him limp in your grip, and I want the whole Nile red."

"I w-want it all too," she ventures nervously, but in an instant the frightening Bakura has vanished and warm arms are circling her tight, holding her close, bronze limbs clutching pale ones, a hand adorned with burial gold stroking sand-white hair. She whimpers, clutching her friend close: this is the life she remembers, this is the life she wants and the reason she'll dye the world crimson at a word from her Queen, but it's not the pain she feels that makes her so afraid, it's knowing in whom the pain must have started….

"It'll all be over soon," croons Bakura; the thief's companion slips a wandering tongue back into her mouth, trying to muster her courage. This corrosion, this decay, is what will bring Bakura the victory she seeks. As long as Bakura is victorious, she'll bear the pain, all of it, she'll scream so Bakura doesn't have to, she'll kill so Bakura can tread the sands of Egypt undisturbed. She'll shift, she'll shed this weak, trembling skin, she'll slink unnoticed through walls and deal swift, unseen vengeance to their foes. She is fierce. She is a fighter. She is Bakura's, to command at will. Because Bakura's happiness is her own.

"It'll be all right," Bakura whispers; she nods, holding her thief tight, wishing she didn't feel like it's Bakura and not herself who the shadows are swallowing. But it's not her place to cry. She's strong now, strong with rot and twistedness and blight, strong and brittle and terrified; yet, like the hated priests, she too has a queen to serve.

She steps back, wipes her eyes, stands tall and lets the shadows around her claim her, growing, shifting, relaxing until the shape of her soul and her body are the same. "I'm ready," she whispers before the harsh grey scaling claims her face.

Bakura nods, a look of soft pride reflecting in eyes still streaked with the desire for murder. "Then let's go kill a King," she whispers tenderly; her companion nods, muscles rippling, soul screaming, mouth muted. "My other self, Diabound."


End file.
